Research

Excellent care and leading innovation at UT Health San Antonio Cardiology

Low-powered circuits developed at UT Health San Antonio prevent false shock from defibrillators in heart patients

Marc Feldman, M.D., interventional cardiologist and Medical Director of UT Health San Antonio Cardiology, provides management for general cardiology cases and intervention in the catheterization lab.

Both specialists, along with their colleagues, couple clinical work with ongoing translational research. Through their research, Drs. Feldman and Prasad are committed to better understanding of cardiac and vascular disease and thus, their treatment of both to better serve patients.

“It’s exciting to know that when you see problems in your clinical practice, you have the tools and the teammates to solve them,” Dr. Feldman says.

The Tech Advantage

In Dr. Feldman’s experience, the endeavor to solve problems with clinical care frequently leads to the development of new technologies. To date, he has been instrumental in establishing three new treatment concepts, each of which has led to patented cardiac devices. The first dealt primarily with stenting treatment, while the second involved the use of light to understand the composition of coronary blockages or stenosis.

The third is called CardioVoltm, which Dr. Feldman developed while working with Admittance Technologies. CardioVol’s low-power circuit, which can be used with implantable defibrillators and cardiac resynchronization therapy hardware, delivers electric charges to the heart through the patient’s existing pacemaker leads. The information gathered provides the most accurate measure of blood volume and the amount of blood ejected with each heartbeat (stroke volume). These real-time measurements can, in turn, act as a warning system of an arrhythmic event and prevent a false shock for patients with implantable defibrillators or aid in real-time adjustments for patients undergoing cardiac resynchronization therapy.

The information CardioVol provides related to blood pressure and volume can also help manage patient care in cases of heart failure, particularly in avoiding readmission to the hospital.

“We know that in some patients, daily measures like patients weighing themselves are not adequate to keep patients out of hospitals,” Dr. Feldman says. “We also know the heart will begin to increase in pressure and volume up to 10 days in advance of admission for a cardiac event which can provide us time to be more aggressive in treating them because we can have this early warning.”

By gauging the amount of blood in the heart at rest (diastole), the CardioVol device can warn both the patient and his or her physician in the event that the heart begins to dilate. Most recently, Admittance Technologies completed a 30-patient trial pairing CardioVol technology with 3-D echocardiography and is now in discussions with pacemaker manufacturers for future clinical studies.

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